Former Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson got into a testy exchange with independent journalist Megyn Kelly during a Tuesday appearance on “The Megyn Kelly Show.”
At the beginning of the show, Williamson complained that too many Americans were mired in their political corners — a fact that she said led people to react to things as Republicans or Democrats rather than reacting to things as Americans.
“Eisenhower said that the American mind at its best is both liberal and conservative. We are E Pluribus Unum, we are different political views, we are different ideologies,” Williamson began. “But there must be some unifying principles on which we agree to agree.”
“Whether it’s Biden that is behaving in an outrageous way or it is Trump behaving in an outrageous way, we shouldn’t respond to these things just as Republicans or Democrats. We should respond to them as Americans,” Williamson continued.
Kelly quickly responded with a list of examples of President Joe Biden behaving in a way she thought was outrageous.
“We see Joe Biden do things like the eviction moratorium, which he knew, he knew was unlawful. And the same thing with the mandate on the vaccines, he knew it was going to get struck down but he did it anyway,” Kelly said.
“If we’re going to be based in reality, let’s be based in reality. And this president misleads us at every turn — and the media misleads us at every turn. When it comes to media, when it comes to ‘Russiagate,’ I mean, and we’re supposed to just look at the ‘orange man bad’ and blame it all on him,” she continued.
Williamson fired back, arguing that everything Kelly had said played into the “us versus them” narrative: “Even what you’re just saying stays stuck in the right versus left.”
Kelly argued that her position was not so much “right versus left” as it was “right versus wrong.”
Williamson went on to complain about both major parties, noting that both Biden and former President Donald Trump had continued domestic oil production — and Kelly pushed back.
“We have to do it — We have to do it, Marianne. People who need to power their houses and need cheap energy cannot get by with the prices we’re going to impose on them,” she said, explaining that the high cost of forcing a move to green energy was not feasible for most Americans.
“If we had started a just transition to clean energy back when Jimmy Carter first talked about it, we would not be vulnerable to Russia the way we are right now,” Williamson complained. “This used to be a country that knew how to respond to emergencies.”
The two women butted heads again over whether or not the United States should focus on strengthening the military — Kelly argued that not strengthening the military after the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan was a display of weakness.
“Not flexing that muscle — going into the fetal position was a disaster!” Kelly said.
Williamson, clearly not thrilled with the direction of the conversation, asked, “Do I get to talk now?”
She turned the conversation back to green energy, arguing that dependence on Russian oil — and oil from other countries — was the problem, and that moving to green energy would eliminate that problem.
“If we had moved into green energy — into clean energy over the last few years when we should have — we wouldn’t need to be horsed to Russia.”
Kelly pushed back again, saying that the United States had been energy independent when Trump was president. “There’s nothing wrong with natural gas!”
Williamson disagreed, however, saying, “This is America, a free society, we don’t all have to agree on everything. You say there’s nothing wrong with natural gas. A lot of people have a problem with that.”